


Five Doctor-Patient Confidentialities Stephen Franklin Is Keeping

by Leyenn



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-16
Updated: 2009-11-16
Packaged: 2017-10-03 02:55:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leyenn/pseuds/Leyenn





	Five Doctor-Patient Confidentialities Stephen Franklin Is Keeping

**1.**

"I'm going to have to put this on your medical file, you know."

"Stephen, I don't _have_ a medical file."

"Not officially, no. I may have been taking some general notes since you came aboard, however."

"_Stephen_." Marcus glares at him across the restaurant table and quietly secrets the divine-scented - but now empty - packet back into a hidden pocket. "Anyway, so I had a cup of coffee. What's so medically fascinating about that?"

He shakes his head. "Do you know what physiological effects the average cup of real, natural coffee has on the Human metabolism? Speeds up serotonin production, stimulation of the central nervous system and spinal nerves..."

"One cup of coffee, Stephen." Marcus narrows his eyes. "You spend this much time haranguing Susan about her caffeine intake?"

"Ivanova and I have an arrangement," he admits.

"You turn a blind eye and she lets you keep both of yours?"

"Something like that."

"Still doesn't explain why you're planning to report me for indulging in a cup of coffee."

"Because I know where you got the coffee _from_." He grins. "Unless, of course, you'd like to enter into a little arrangement yourself...?"

Marcus sighs as if he expected that sooner or later. "All right. Your place or mine?"

He blinks. Okay, that wasn't quite what he expected. But, on the other hand, he knows for a fact that Marcus' place has a kitchen cupboard within which is hiding some real, honest-to-goodness Columbian coffee beans. And he doesn't need to be on duty again for another oh, at least three hours.

He stands up and grins. "Lead the way."

Marcus points back to the chair. "Not unless I get to finish this first." His grin is as wicked as any he's ever given before. "Sit, Stephen, I won't be long."

  


*

  


**2.**

He is not going to laugh.

He. Is. Not. Going. To. Laugh.

"Excuse me for a moment," he says, with a miraculous straight face, and escapes from the room long enough to breathe through the impulse to burst into a fit of uncontrollable hilarity right in the middle of his shift.

Maybe it's the stims, part of him thinks. You're losing grip on reality. This isn't really as amusing as you think it is.

This is Babylon 5, the rest of him says. _Reality_ has nothing to do with anything.

He goes back into the room with another quick shot of stims singing in his blood, a pad in one hand and a stylus in the other that he just squeezes very hard until the impulse to laugh dies away.

Vir looks askance at him from the bed, and in his own utterly unconvincing way, obviously tries not to look as terrified as he really is.

"Is it... permanent?"

He is not going to laugh.

"No, Vir. It's not permanent." He is not going to laugh.

"Really?"

Vir is so earnestly relieved that he lets himself crack a smile all the same. "Absolutely. There's just a little swelling, that's all. And I should warn you, it will bruise some very interesting colors in the next few days. And you might want to put off any, uh... repeat performances until for the next week or so."

Vir's wince says that's not going to be a problem. It's hard not to feel sorry for him, the poor guy. First that mess with the psychopathic fiancée, and now this...

"You can, uh, you can button your shirt now." He gestures. "And don't worry, Vir. I'm sure... with dinner, maybe some flowers..."

Vir sighs. "I don't think dinner and flowers have the same effect on Centauri women as they do on Humans." He finishes buttoning his shirt and shifts uncomfortably as he settles his jacket back on. "Um. Doctor. Londo's not going to know about... this, is he?"

"Doctor's honor," he says firmly. It really is hard not to feel sorry for the poor guy. Six of the things and a - by all accounts - stunning dancing girl, and he still can't get it right...

  


*

  


**3.**

She sits back on the bed, closes her eyes, and the enhanced electroencephalogram - all eighty thousand credits' worth of it, barely worth it for how little use it gets - whines loudly and slams through the top of the scale at slightly faster than the speed of sound.

Maybe Talia Winters is worth eighty thousand credits all by herself. Psi Corps would certainly think so.

He lays a hand on her arm. "That's fine," he tells her, offering her a smile. "I think we'll leave the rest of the tests for now. Until..."

"Until you have something that can measure this?" she suggests gently, smiling but with a quiet shadow in her eyes.

He smiles at that and squeezes her arm. "Yeah. Yeah, that's probably a good idea."

It's a good thing, he thinks as he watches her slip down from the bed, that he won't be making any official record of this appointment. Just the idea of Psi Corps getting their hands on this talent makes a cold shiver go down his spine.

She turns at the door and smiles at him again. The shadow isn't there any more; this time there's only fire. "Don't worry, Stephen. They won't."

  


*

  


**4.**

"I guess I knew. I mean, I should've known. It should've been pretty obvious." He pauses. The glass sits on the bar in front of them, like a snake about to bite. "You knew, Stephen. Right?"

He thinks about what to say. The problem is, he can't find anything. He did know. Ivanova and Talia; then Ivanova and the Captain; he hadn't needed his doctorate to work out the next step. It _was_ pretty obvious, even without the elementary understanding of relationship dynamics that seems to have eluded Michael Garibaldi until this point.

This is like watching someone about to shoot himself. This is _worse_ than watching someone about to shoot himself.

"Michael," he starts, but it dies a death when he realises he's got nothing to come after it. He sighs. "Look, if you really - I mean, if you really want that drink, then go ahead. I'm not going to stop you. Hell, I'm hardly the guy to try."

He watches Michael's fingers reach out, frighteningly like a caress, the nearer they get to the rounded rim of the glass, the amber warmth of brivari inside. He clenches his fist. He means it: no way he's going to stop this, if this is the way it's going. More harm than good to get between a man and his temptations, he's learnt that the damned hardest way there is. Doesn't mean he wants one of his best friends making the same mistake.

Then Michael drops his hand, flat onto the bar, and sighs.

Stephen breathes and puts his hand on the other man's shoulder.

"You're a stronger man than me," he says roughly. Michael smiles without much humor and pushes the glass across to him.

"Yeah, we'll see about that if the Captain's still alive in the morning." He looks up as the bartender goes past, and Stephen leaves a hand on his shoulder until he asks for a glass of water instead.

  


*

  


**5.**

"You're sure about this."

Of course they're sure. If they weren't, John wouldn't be standing in his office now asking him this absurd kind of question. Thank god, at least Delenn's not the one who's come to him with this. (He's tried thinking of her as The President, but in this particular situation, that just doesn't cut it.)

The answer is a pretty resounding stare. He fills up the silence with clearing his throat and shuffling the closest things he can find, which have absolutely nothing to do with the matter in hand.

"Okay. Well, I can - do some preliminary tests, see how the odds of genetic compatibility come out-"

Sheridan shifts his feet, looking a little more at ease with that as an answer than the frank consideration of insanity he was obviously projecting when the conversation started. "That's all we're asking. That and..."

He nods. "Not a word."

"We all trust you, Stephen. And you know Delenn's biology better than any of the Minbari here. We talked about it, and I'm afraid if we go ahead with this, you're already in with the job."

"I'm honored," he says dryly, a little too shocked to actually feel it. "Though I was gathering that would be more your department."

Sheridan chuckles. "Yeah. That part, we haven't quite got through the practicalities of yet."

"Well, I'll leave that up to you." He really doesn't want to get involved in thinking about that if he can at all help it. "Mind if I ask how Susan and Talia are taking this whole idea?"

Sheridan rolls his eyes with some chagrin. "_Taking_ it? Who do you think put Delenn up to asking _me_ in the first place?"

He laughs then like he hasn't laughed in months. Sometimes, harem or not, he doesn't envy John Sheridan at all.

  


*

  



End file.
